3
To-day I want to make various comments on matters that have
been mentioned lately, and to fill in certain gaps. If you
follow with attention current trends, you will have noticed a
feeling that the thoughts and impressions and impulses which
for a long time have led to such “splendid
progress” are no longer capable of helping us to cope
with the immediate future. Yesterday one of our members gave me
a copy of the Frankfurter Zeitung for last
Wednesday, November 21st. There speaks a very learned gentleman
... he must be very learned, for he is not only a Doctor of
Philosophy but also a Doctor of Theology, and also a Professor,
so naturally he is a very clever man. He has written an article
which deals with all sorts of spiritual needs of the present
time, and in the course of it he says:
“The experience of the form of being which lies behind
things does not require pious dedication or a religious
evaluation, for it is itself religion. We are concerned not
with feeling and grasping a particular content, but with the
great Irrational which lies hidden behind all existence ...
Anyone who makes contact with this, so that the divine spark
leaps across, goes through an experience which is of primal
character and may be called the primordial experience. Anyone
who experiences this one thing, together with all that is
stirred by the same flow of life, is imbued with — to use
a favourite modern phrase — a feeling of cosmic
existence.”
Excuse me for reading this to you: I am quoting it not in order
to arouse in you any magnificent ideas, but so as to bring
before you a sign of the times:
“A cosmic religiosity is coming to birth among us, and
how strong is the demand for it is shown by the evident spread
of the theosophical movement, which undertakes to discover and
unveil the phases of this life beyond the range of the
senses.”
It
is really difficult to stumble through all these wishy-washy
ideas, but you will agree that the article is remarkable
as a symptom of the times! He goes on: “In this cosmic
piety there is no question of a mysticism which turns away from
the world ...” and so on.
It
would be hard to discover anything intelligent in all this, but
since it is written by a man with all these degrees, one must
suppose that some intelligence is there! Otherwise we
should have to take it as the obscure stammering of a learned
man who has reached a dead end on his own path and now feels
impelled to call attention to something which certainly exists
and evidently appears to him as not wholly unattainable.
There is no cause for satisfaction in such remarks; we must
above all take care not to let them lull us into a comfortable
slumber just because it has again been noticed, from some point
of view or other, that something lies behind the
spiritual-scientific movement. That would be really harmful.
People who write in this way are often quite satisfied with
having written it. With these misty thoughts they point to
something which is trying to make its way into the world, but
they are far too complacent to go in for the serious study that
Spiritual Science requires. Nothing less than that must lay
hold of men's minds if some reality is to be brought into the
trends of the times, so that healing can come of it. Of course
it is easier to talk of this “surge” of
“cosmic feeling” than to give serious attention to
those things that are demanded by the signs of the times and
must be made known to mankind. For this reason it seems to me
necessary to repeat here the remarks I have made in public
lectures and shall make again, with particular emphasis now on
the distinction between the worn-out ideas which have led into
these catastrophic times and those which must take hold of
human souls if any sort of progress is to be accomplished.
The
old wisdom, through which mankind has been guided up to our
time, may give rise to thousands of congresses,
world-congresses, people's congresses and so on; thousands and
thousands of societies may be founded; but we must be clear
that all these congresses and societies will accomplish nothing
unless the life-blood of Spiritual Science flows through them.
What is lacking among people to-day is the courage to embark on
real research into the spiritual world. Strange as it may
sound, it must be said — as a first step nothing else
would be needed than to spread the little booklet,
Human Life in the light of Anthroposophy,
in the widest circles. Something would thereby be done to
evoke knowledge of a connection between man and the cosmic
order. The booklet calls attention precisely to this knowledge
by showing in concrete terms how throughout the year the earth
undergoes changes in its state of consciousness —
and so on. What is said in that booklet and in this lecture is
said with full consideration for the needs of our time.
Acceptance of it would signify more than all this wishy-washy
talk on cosmic feeling and surges and I know not what. I have
just read this to you and I can't bring myself to repeat it
— it is all put in such a senseless way.
This should of course not prevent us from taking note of such
things: they are important and real. What I want to bring home
to you is that we must not befog ourselves: we must be
absolutely clear as to what we wish to do on behalf of
Spiritual Science.
Now
I will turn again to the fact that in this fifth post-Atlantean
epoch humanity will have to find ways of dealing with great
life-problems which in a certain sense were veiled by the
wisdom of the past. I have already called your attention to
them. One of these great problems will be concerned with
finding out how to place the spiritual etheric forces at the
service of practical life. I have told you that in this epoch
we have to solve the problem of how the radiations from human
states of mind are carried over into machines; of how human
beings are to be brought into relation with an
environment which must become increasingly mechanised. A
week ago I pointed out how superficially this
mechanisation is treated in a certain part of the world.
I gave you the example of how an American way of thinking tries
to extend the realm of the machine over human life itself. I
told you of the rest-pauses which were used in order to enable
a given number of workmen to load up to 47½ tons, instead
of a much lower figure; this involves simply the application of
Darwinian natural selection to human life.
Where this kind of thing goes on, the wish to yoke up human
strength with the strength of machines is always involved. It
would be quite mistaken merely to oppose these things. They are
not going to fade away; they are on the march. The only
question is whether in the course of world-history they are
going to be brought on to the scene by men who are unselfishly
aware of the great aims of earth-evolution and wish to shape
these developments for the healing of mankind, or by groups of
men who want to use them for their own or the group's selfish
ends. That is the issue. The point is not what is going
to happen, for it certainly will happen, but how it
happens — how these things are handled. The welding
together of human beings with machines will be a great and
important problem for the rest of the
earth-evolution.
I
have often pointed out, even in public lectures, that human
consciousness depends on destructive forces. During public
lectures in Basle I twice said that in our nerve-system we are
always in process of dying. These forces of death will become
stronger and stronger, and we shall find that they are related
to the forces of electricity and magnetism, and to those at
work in machines. A man will be able in a certain sense to
guide his intentions and his thoughts into the forces of the
machines. Forces in human nature that are still unknown will be
discovered — forces which will act upon external
electricity and magnetism.
That is one problem: the bringing together of human beings with
machines, and this is something which will exert
ever-increasing influence on the future.
The
other problem is concerned with calling in spiritual
relationships to our aid. This can be done only when the time
is ripe, and when a sufficient number of people are rightly
prepared for it. But we must come to the stage when spiritual
forces are brought into action for the governance of life in
relation to illness and death.
Medicine will be spiritualised — very highly
spiritualised. These things will be caricatured from
various standpoints, but the caricatures only show what
has to come. Again, the question is whether or not this problem
— like the other problem I have mentioned — is
handled in an egotistic way by individuals or by groups.
The
third great question concerns ways of thinking about human
birth and upbringing. I have told you how congresses on this
subject have already been held, and how a materialistic form of
science will be brought to bear in the future on procreation
and the union of man and woman. These things indicate the great
significance that attaches to this process of becoming. It is
easy enough to ask why those who have the right knowledge in
these matters do not apply it. In the future it will be clear
enough what the state of affairs is regarding this application,
and what are the forces which are even now opposing, for
example, a more generous provision for a spiritualised medicine
or a spiritualised economic life. All that can be done at
present is to speak of these things, until people — I
mean those who are ready to accept them selflessly —
understand them sufficiently. There are many who think they
have already got as far as that, but many hindrances arise from
the circumstances of life to-day. These will be overcome in the
right way only if understanding goes deeper and deeper,
and if we actually refrain, for a time at least, from
attempting practical applications on any large scale.
Things have developed in such a way that one can say: Little is
known of all that lay behind the old atavistic searchings which
continued up to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. People
talk a great deal about the old alchemy; sometimes they call to
mind the creation of Homunculus and so on. But most of this
talk misses the point. If people would come to understand what
can be said about the Homunculus scene in Faust, for
instance, they would be better informed: the essential thing is
that a mist has been spread over these subjects since the
sixteenth century. They have receded into the background of
human consciousness.
The
law which prevails here is the same law which governs the
rhythmic alternation of waking and sleeping in man. Just as a
person cannot do without sleep, so mankind could not dispense
with the sleep regarding spiritual knowledge which has marked
the whole period since the sixteenth century. Man had to fall
asleep to the spiritual, so that it could reappear in a new
form. These necessities must be clearly seen, but without
letting them depress us. We must realise clearly that the time
for awakening has now come, that we have to play our part in
it, that events often run ahead of our knowledge and that we
shall not understand the events going on around us unless we
are willing to receive the knowledge and to act in accordance
with it.
I
have repeatedly told you that certain groups are working
esoterically in the direction I have indicated. It was first of
all necessary that certain forms of knowledge — called
nowadays by such misunderstood words as alchemy, astrology,
etc. — should fall into abeyance, so that men should no
longer be able to discern the soul-element in outer Nature and
should rather be thrown back on themselves. And in order that
they should awaken their inward forces, certain things had to
appear as abstractions. Now these things must again take on a
concrete spiritual form.
During the last centuries three ideas have gradually emerged in
abstract guise. They were incorrectly named by Kant, and
correctly by Goethe. Kant called them God, Freedom and
Immortality; Goethe called them God, Virtue and Immortality. If
we look into what lies behind these three words, we find that
the same words are taken abstractly by modern man and were
taken more concretely — but also more materially in the
old atavistic sense — up to the fourteenth or fifteenth
centuries. Experiments in the old style were carried out: the
alchemists sought to observe processes in which the working of
God could be seen. And they tried to produce the Philosopher's
Stone.
Something concrete lies behind all these things. The
Philosopher's Stone was to enable men to become virtuous
— but this was thought of in a more material sense. It
was also to lead to an experience of immortality: to bring a
man into such a relationship to the cosmic whole that he would
experience in himself what lies beyond birth and death. All the
nebulous ideas by which people nowadays try to grasp these
things no longer correspond with what was really intended. It
has all become abstract, and it is of abstract ideas that
modern men speak. They want to understand God through an
abstract theology, and virtue also as something abstract
— the more abstract it is, the better people like it. And
it is the same with immortality. Speculation turns on
what in man could be immortal. In my first Basle lecture
[23rd November, 1917. (Not translated into English.)]
I said that the
kind of learning which under the name of philosophy occupies
itself with such questions as that of immortality is a
starveling, under-nourished kind of learning. That is merely
another way of describing the abstract terms in which such
matters are pursued.
In
certain Western brotherhoods, however, a connection with
the old traditions has been retained, and endeavours are made
to use it for the egotistic interests of the group. It is time
to call attention to these things. Of course, if from this
Western quarter anything is said about God, virtue or freedom,
and immortality, the words are given an abstract sense, but in
the circle of initiates it is well known that all this is not
mere abstract speculation. For their own part, they look for
something much more concrete behind these abstract formulae,
and in their own schools these terms are accordingly
translated. God is translated as gold, and an endeavour
is made to arrive at what lies behind the secret of gold, as it
may be called. For gold, the representative of the sun-like
within the earth's crust, does in fact enshrine an important
secret. Gold stands in the same material relationships to other
substances as the thought of God does to other thoughts. The
only question is what is made of this secret.
This is linked up with the egotistic use of the mystery of
birth, and here, real cosmic understanding is sought. All such
understanding has been replaced for modern men by a purely
earthly understanding. If someone wants to investigate, for
example, how the embryonic life-cell of animal or man develops,
he studies it through a microscope and is concerned only
with what lies there directly under his lens. But that is far
from being the whole thing. It will be realised — and
some groups are very near this already — that the forces
at work are not contained in the cell but come from the cosmos
and its constellations. When a seed of life arises, it does so
because the living creature which harbours the seed is
receiving forces, cosmic forces, from all sides of the cosmos.
And when fertilisation occurs, the results depend on
which cosmic forces enter actively into the process.
One
thing, not yet seen, will be recognised. To-day the idea is
that we have a living creature, a hen, let us say. When a new
seed of life appears in the hen, the biologist investigates how
the egg arises out of the hen; he looks within the hen itself
for the forces which cause the seed to grow. That is nonsense.
The egg does not grow out of the hen; the hen is merely the
substratum for it. The growth-forces work from out of the
cosmos on to the soil which has been prepared in the hen for
engendering the egg. The biologist to-day believes that the
relevant forces are all to be found within the field of his
microscope. Actually, what he sees there depends on stellar
forces which work together in a certain pattern at a given
point. When we discover the cosmic at this point, then for the
first time we shall have got at the reality and the truth: it
is the cosmic whole which conjures up the egg in the hen.
All
this is connected especially with the secret of the sun, and in
earthly terms with the secret of gold. To-day I can give you
only a sort of schematic indication of it; these things will
become much clearer in the course of time.
When “virtue” is discussed in these same schools,
they call it simply “health,” and try to learn how
the cosmic constellations are connected with health and
sickness in men. By this means they come to know the particular
earthly substances, the juices and so on, which are in their
turn connected with sickness and health. We shall see develop
increasingly from a certain direction a more material form of
medical knowledge, but it will rest on a spiritual
foundation.
From this side also will be spread the idea that man cannot be
made good by learning all sorts of ethical principles, but by
ingesting copper, for example, under a certain constellation,
and arsenic under another. You can well imagine how ideas of
this kind can be used by egotistic groups for enhancing their
own power. They need only withhold this knowledge from others,
and this will be the best means of dominating large numbers of
men. They will not need to talk about such things; it will be
enough to bring forward some new titbit. Then they will find
openings for this titbit, having first flavoured it
appropriately, and they will achieve their purpose when these
novelties are accepted in a materialistic sense. We have only
to remember that spiritual potencies are hidden in everything
material. Only he who knows that in a true sense there really
is nothing material, but only the spiritual — only he
will penetrate behind the secrets of life.
Similar endeavours are made from the same quarter to transpose
the problem of immortality into a materialistic frame, and
this, too, can be done by making use of the cosmic
constellations. This method certainly does not yield the
immortality that is the subject of so many speculations, but
immortality of another sort. Given a brotherhood lodge, then
— at least so long as life cannot be lengthened by
working on the physical body — preparations are
made for subjecting a soul to such experiences as will
enable it to remain within the lodge after death, so that it
may contribute its forces to those at the disposal of the
lodge. In these circles, accordingly, immortality is called
simply “lengthening of life.”
External signs of all this can indeed be seen. I don't know if
some of you may have noticed a book which also came from the
West and caused a little stir for a while; it was called
“On the Nonsense of Death.” These things all move
in the same direction. They are still at their
beginnings, for everything beyond that is kept as a
closely guarded esoteric secret by the egotistic groups. But
these things are really possible if they are given a
materialistic colouring; if the abstract ideas of God, virtue
and immortality are turned into the concrete ideas of
gold, health and lengthening of life, and if what I have called
the great problem of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is utilised
for the purpose of an egotistic group. You see, this
“cosmic feeling,” which the learned Professor and
Doctor of Theology talks about, is already being widely
presented to people — and often, unfortunately, in an
egotistic sense — as cosmic knowledge. For centuries
science has kept its eyes fixed on earthly processes, and has
ignored all the most significant influences that come from
beyond the earth, but it is precisely in our fifth
post-Atlantean epoch that extra-terrestrial forces from the
cosmos will be put to use.
And
so, just as it is essential for an orthodox professor of
biology to have the most powerful microscope available
and the most efficient laboratory methods, so, in the future,
when science has been spiritualised, it will be of the utmost
importance whether certain processes are carried through in the
morning or in the evening, or at midday, and whether what has
been done in the morning is allowed to be further influenced by
an evening activity, or whether the cosmic influences are cut
out, paralysed, from the morning until the evening. Processes
of this kind will of necessity come to light and will run their
course. Naturally, a great deal of water will have to flow
under the bridges before the professional chairs and
laboratories, at present organised on purely materialistic
lines, are handed over to spiritual scientists, but this
replacement must come about if humanity is not to sink into
utter decadence. For example, if the question is one of doing
good in the immediate future, existing laboratory methods must
give way to methods whereby certain processes take place in the
morning and are interrupted during the day, so that the cosmic
stream passes through them again in the evening and is in turn
rhythmically withheld again until morning. So the processes
would take their course: certain cosmic workings would always
be interrupted by day, and the cosmic morning and evening
processes would be brought in. All sorts of arrangements would
be necessary for this. You will realise that if one is not in a
position to take any public action about these things, all one
can do is to speak of them.
However, just as gold, health and the prolongation of life are
put in the place of God, virtue and immortality, so from the
same quarter efforts will be made to work not with the morning
and evening processes, but with others. Last week I told you
how an attempt will be made to set aside the impulse of the
Mystery of Golgotha, while for the West another impulse, a sort
of Anti-Christ is introduced; and from the East an
attempt will be made to paralyse the twentieth-century
manifestation of the Christ Impulse by diverting attention from
the coming etheric Christ.
Those concerned to present an Anti-Christ as the real Christ
will try also to make use of something that works through the
most material forces, but in this very way can work
spiritually. Above all they will strive to make use of
electricity and earth-magnetism in order to produce effects all
over the world. I have shown you how earth-forces rise up into
what I have called the human Double, the
Doppelgänger. This secret will be opened up.
An American secret will be to make use of earth-magnetism, with
its north-south duality, and by this means to send over the
earth guiding forces which will have spiritual effects. Look at
the magnetic chart of the earth and compare it with what
I am now saying. Observe where the magnetic needle deviates to
East and West and where it does not deviate. I can give only
hints about all this. From a certain direction in the heavens,
spiritual beings are continually active, and they have only to
be put into the service of the earth, and — because these
beings working in from the cosmos can mediate the secret of the
earth's magnetism — it will be possible for egotistic
groups to get behind this secret and to accomplish a great deal
in connection with gold, health and the prolongation of life.
It will be necessary for them only to pluck up their faltering
courage — and in certain circles that will be done
readily enough!
From the East an endeavour will be made to strengthen what I
have already explained: to place in the service of the earth
the beings which work in from the opposite side of the cosmos.
In the future there will be a great battle. Human science will
stretch out to the cosmic, but will try to get there by
different paths. It will be the task of good, healing science
to find certain cosmic forces which can reach the earth through
the co-operation of two cosmic streams, those of Pisces and
Virgo. The great secret to be discovered will be how the
influence which works from the direction of Pisces as a power
of the sun unites itself with the influence working from the
direction of Virgo. It will make for good when it is learnt how
the morning and evening forces from the two sides of the cosmos
can be brought into the service of humanity. (See diagram at
end of lecture.)
These forces, however, will be left aside by those who try to
achieve their whole purpose through the polaric duality of
positive and negative forces. The forces which enable the
spiritual to stream down to earth with the aid of positive and
negative magnetism come from Gemini; they are the midday
forces. In ancient times it was known that cosmic influences
were involved in this, and to-day even exoteric scientists are
aware that in some or other way positive and negative magnetism
lie behind Gemini in the Zodiac. The aim will be to paralyse
all that could be gained through a revelation of the true
duality in the cosmos — to paralyse it in a
materialistic, egotistic way by means of the forces which
stream in particularly from Gemini and can be placed entirely
at the service of the human “Double.”
Other brotherhoods, concerned above all to divert attention
from the Mystery of Golgotha, will try to make use of the
duality in human nature — the duality which in our epoch
embraces man as a unity, but includes within him his lower
animal nature. A human being is really a centaur in a certain
sense: his humanity rests on his lower animal nature in its
astral form. This working together of the duality in man gives
rise to a duality of forces. This duality of forces will be
utilised particularly by certain egotistic brotherhoods,
chiefly from the side of India and the East, in order to
mislead eastern Europe, whose task it is to prepare for the
sixth post-Atlantean epoch. And this will be done with the aid
of the forces which work in from Sagittarius.
Whether to conquer the cosmic for mankind in a wrong, twofold
way, or rightly in a one-fold way — that is the question
facing mankind. From this will come a true renewal of
astrology, which in its old form is atavistic and cannot
survive. The wise Beings of the cosmos will enter into the
struggle; one side will use the morning and evening processes
in the way I have indicated; the West will prefer the midday
processes, shutting out the morning and evening ones; and
the East will prefer the midnight ones. Men will no longer
manufacture substances on the basis merely of chemical
attraction and repulsion; they will know that different
substances arise according to whether they are made with
morning and evening processes, or with midday and midnight
ones. It will be known that such substances act in a quite
different way on the triad, God, virtue and immortality —
gold, health and prolongation of life. When the forces of
Pisces and Virgo act in co-operation, nothing wrongful can be
brought into being. Men will achieve something through which
the mechanism of life will be detached, in a certain sense,
from man himself, but will not give any one group power and
rulership over another. The cosmic forces drawn from this
direction will create remarkable machines, but only those
that will relieve man of work, because they will carry a
certain power of intelligence within themselves. And a
Spiritual Science which itself reaches out towards the cosmic
will have to see to it that all the great temptations which
come from these machine-animals, created by man himself, are
not allowed to exercise any harmful influence upon him.
With regard to all this, the essential thing is that people
should prepare themselves for it by not treating realities as
illusions and by coming to a genuine spiritual conception
and understanding of the world. To see things as they are
— very much depends on that! But we can see them as they
are only if we are in a position to bring the ideas of
Spiritual Science to bear on reality. For the rest of the
earth's existence the dead will be co-operating actively in the
highest degree, and it is how they co-operate that will
matter. Here, above all, a great distinction will arise. On one
side the attitude of men on earth can rightly lead the
co-operation of the dead in such a direction that the dead will
be active out of their own impulse, an impulse coming from the
spiritual world which the dead are themselves
experiencing. But from the other side many endeavours will be
made to introduce the dead into human existence by artificial
means. Along the indirect path through Gemini the dead will be
led into human life, with the result that human vibrations will
pass over into the mechanism of machines and will continue to
vibrate there in a quite definite way. The cosmos will impart
motion to the machines by the indirect path I have
indicated.
It
will thus be essential, when these problems emerge, that no
improper methods should be applied to them, but only those
elemental forces which belong to nature on their own account,
and great care will have to be taken not to introduce improper
forces into the realm of machines. In this occult sphere the
human element must not be related to machinery in such a way
that the Darwinian natural selection theory is used to
determine the working capacity of human beings, in the way of
which I gave you an example last week.
I
am making these remarks — obviously they cannot exhaust
the subject in so short a time — in the belief that you
will meditate on these things and will try to build a bridge
between them and all those experiences of life which can be
encountered, particularly in this difficult time. You will see
how things become clear to you if you contemplate them in the
light that can come from such ideas as those I have been
placing before you. The real point is not that in our time
powers and constellations of powers are standing opposed to
each other, as we are always being told in external exoteric
life. The real point is quite different. It is that a kind of
veil is now meant to be spread over the true impulses at work.
Certain human powers are intent on saving something for
themselves — what is it? Their aim is that impulses which
up to the time of the French Revolution were justified, and
were represented also by certain occult schools, shall now be
taken charge of in an Ahrimanic-Luciferic sense, so as to
maintain a form of society which is generally thought to have
been overcome since the end of the eighteenth century.
Two
powers, especially, stand in opposition to each other: the
power representing the principle that was overcome at the
end of the eighteenth century and the power representing the
new age. A great many people, of course, are instinctively
supporters of the new age. Therefore the representatives of the
old impulses, those of the eighteenth, seventeenth and
sixteenth centuries, must be yoked by artificial means to the
forces which emanate from certain brotherhoods who are working
for group-egotistic ends. The most effective principle for
extending power over as many men as may be needed is to-day the
principle of economic dependence. But that is only an
instrument: the real thing is quite different. The real issue
you can gather for yourselves from all the various hints I have
given. The economic principle is connected with
everything which seeks to enlist a great number of men
all over the world as a kind of army in the service of these
principles.
These are the powers which stand opposed to each other. And
this indicates what it is that is really battling in the world
to-day. In the West we have the principle which is really
rooted in the eighteenth, seventeenth and sixteenth
centuries, but which passes unnoticed because it clothes itself
in the phrases of revolution and democracy. It wears them as a
mask and by this means strives to gain all possible power for
itself. These endeavours are favoured if as many people as
possible do not exert themselves to see things as they are, and
in this field allow themselves to be lulled to sleep again and
again by the illusion that to-day there is a war between the
Entente and the powers of Central Europe.
In
reality there is no such war; only by going behind this
illusion can one get at the real struggle, but light can be
thrown on it if it is approached along the lines which, for
certain reasons, I only hint at. At least we should endeavour
not to take illusions for realities: then gradually the
illusion will be dispelled as far as it need be. Above all we
must strive to see these things objectively, as they really
are.
If
you bring together all that I have been saying, you will see
that an apparently casual remark I made in the course of these
lectures was not so at all. When I quoted something that
Mephistopheles said to Faust, “I see you know the
Devil” (he would certainly not have said this to Woodrow
Wilson), it was by no means a casual remark: it can throw a
great deal of light on the present situation. We must really
look at these things objectively, without sympathy or
antipathy; above all, we must be able to see how much in a
particular case depends on the setting and how much on the
capacity of an individual, for behind an individual's capacity
there often lies something quite different from what lies
behind the setting. Ask yourselves without prejudice
— how much would Woodrow Wilson's brain be worth if it
were not throned on the Presidency of the United States?
Consider how it would be if this brain had a quite different
setting: then its individual capacity would be revealed! The
setting is what matters.
Let
me now speak abstractly and radically, of course without
discussing in detail the particular case I have mentioned
— in a neutral country that would not be appropriate. If
you take any individual brain, it can be revealing to ask
whether it is worth something because it is illuminated and
activated by a particular spiritual soul-force — whether
it has the kind of spiritual significance I have been speaking
of here — or whether it is worth no more than its weight,
measured on a pair of scales.
In
the eyes of people to-day, all this is grotesque; but what
seems grotesque to them must come to seem obvious, if certain
things are to be diverted from an unhealthy stream into a
health-giving one. And what good is it to be always talking
about them? You must come to see that there is no point in
wishy-washy talk about “cosmic religiosity” or
“how strong the striving for it is,” or of
“the movement which aims at discovering and revealing the
circulation of the life behind the senses,” and so on.
All this does is to spread a mist over things which must be
brought out clearly in the world, and should above all be
carried as practical moral-ethical impulses into human
life.
I
can give you only indications. I leave you to build on them in
your own meditations. I have been speaking aphoristically in
many respects. But you will have the possibility of drawing a
great deal out of the relationships shown in this picture of
the Zodiac, if you truly use it as a subject for
meditation.
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